Struсtures

The principal parts of the sentence. Types of predicate.

The subject and the predicate constitute the backbone of the sentence: without them the sentence would not exist at all, whereas all other parts may or may not be there, and if they are there, they serve to define or modify either the subject or the predicate, or each other.

The subject is one of the 2 main parts of the sentence:

1. It denotes the thing whose action or characteristic is expressed by the predicate. 

2. It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence.

It may be expressed by different parts of speech, the most frequent ones being: a noun in the common case, a personal pronoun in the nominative case, a demonstrative pronoun occasionally, a substantivized adjective, a numeral, an infinitive, and a gerund. It may also be expressed by a phrase.

The predicate is one of the 2 main parts of the sentence:

1. It denotes the action or property of the thing expressed by the subject

2. It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence.

3. Ways of expressing the predicate are varied and their structure will better be considered under the heading of types of predicate.

It is sometimes claimed that the predicate agrees in number with the subject: when the subject is in the singular, the predicate is bound to be in the singular, and vice versa. However this statement is very doubtful.

• E.g. My family are early risers. + The question of concord refers to the level of phrases, not sentences.

Types of predicate:

Predicates may be classified in 2 ways, one of which is based on their structure (simple or compound), and the other on their morphological characteristics (verbal or nominal).

Structural classification:

1. simple predicate (verbal and nominal)

2. compound predicate (verbaland nominal

Morphological classification:

1. verbal predicate (simple and compound)

2. nominal predicate(simple and compound)

The simple nominal predicate – a predicate consisting merely of a noun or an adjective, without a link verb, is rare in English, but it is nevertheless a living type and must be recognized as such.

Only 2 spheres of its use:

1. In sentences where the immediate neighborhood of the subject noun and the predicate noun or adjective is used to suggest the impossibility or absurdity of the idea that they might be connected. Sentences with this kind of simple nominal predicate are always exclamatory, e.g. My ideas obsolete!!!!!!! It would not do to call such sentences elliptical since the link verb cannot be added without completely changing the meaning of the sentence.

2. In the sentences un which the predicative comes first, the subject next, and no link verb is either used or possible. Such sentences seem to occur chiefly in colloquial style, e.g. “Splendid game, cricket”, remarked MR Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one in particular; “so thoroughly English”.

The compound nominal predicate is always consists of a link verb and a predicative, which may be expressed by various parts of speech, usually a noun, an adjective, also a stative, or an adverb.

Link verb – the idea of link suggests that its function is to connect the predicative with the subject. It is not correct. The true function of a link verb is not a connecting function. It expresses the tense and the mod in the predicate (to be also expresses number and person).

There are sentences in which the finite verb is a predicate itself, i.e. it contains some information about the subject which may be taken separately, but at the same time the verb is followed by a predicative and is in so far a link verb. He came home tired - the finite verb in such sentences conveys a meaning of its own, but the main point of the sentence lies in the information conveyed by the predicative noun or adjective. The finite verb performs the function of a link verb.